


Thawed

by Archer_Willows



Series: Thawed [1]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22866946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archer_Willows/pseuds/Archer_Willows
Summary: Archer and Emma live in the year 2020. They live generally normal lives until tragedy strikes and mysterious voices are calling to them, sending them to an unknown land in an unknown time, assisted only by magic and familiar faces. With danger at every corner, Archer, Emma, Kristoff, Elsa, and Anna must save Arendelle, and possibly, even reality itself.
Series: Thawed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643740





	1. Section One, Part One

**Section One, Part One**

**Archer Willows** couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t been able to for months. The lowlight of his life so far, the greatest embarrassment he’d ever made of himself, the worst months of his life still haunted his mind.   
Once again, he replayed January 8th, 2020’s events again in his head. He tried to figure out what went so terribly wrong.   
It started out as an ordinary day. He ate breakfast, packed up, and went to school. He tried to warm himself up because he was so cold from walking. At 9:15, the bell rang. Archer put his stuff away and went to First Period U.S. History class. He sat down and read while waiting for Mr. Archine, the teacher. Archer’s friend Leila sat down and said hello. Archer replied with a tired, “Hey,” before reading. Then as usual his heart began to beat inside his head, as it always did when she came in. It was like a sixth sense to know when Emma Layror walked into class. 

Did he have a crush on her? Well, no. 

It was  _ far _ beyond a simple crush.

Emma and Archer met on one of the first days of school. They had a few things in common, including being Leila’s friend. Archer didn’t know what to make of her at first. But after they got to know each other in Mr. Archine’s class, he really wanted to be her friend. She was nice, funny, caring, helpful, intelligent, and always so calm.   
Emma was tall and lean, with light caramel skin and long, straight, almost waist-length golden honey brown hair that looked both caramel in the dark and dark, rich brown in the light that made her warm skin seem to glow. She had extremely kind, warm toffee brown eyes. Her lips were a slightly darker caramel than her skin, and her smile warms the heart of anyone looking. You could tell that she worked out from the slight muscle tone on her still smooth and gracious arms and legs. She always smelled like cinnamon and hot buttery toast.  
Archer _did_ develop a crush on Emma. But as the months crept by, he found himself liking her more and more until he had completely fallen for her. He could never stop thinking about her. He became infatuated with getting to know her, and he found out that she was _extraordinary_ at playing the flute, and was likely to try out for All County Band. Archer had signed up beforehand anyway, he’d gotten in last year. (Archer was a fantastic drummer, he just refused to admit it)  
Fast-forward to the day of tryouts. It _was_ a regular day. He’d talked with Emma, trying not to get red, Archer was and still is absolutely clueless when it came to girls.  
The day went on as usual. Archer got bored, wanted to go home, got bored, finished a 5 paragraph essay in 15 minutes, daydreamed about Emma, got bored, got dismissed to go home, and psyched himself up. _Tonight_ will _be the night,_ he insisted himself. _After tryouts, I’ll ask to talk to her. Then, I’ll tell her how I feel._ _  
_ Tryouts went good. That wasn’t what Archer’s mind was really on. He didn’t care that he messed up on his Timpani audition. He only cared when he felt her coming in. She was dressed in a black short sleeved dress top and leggings, with a necklace that had the letter ‘E’ on it. She’d combed her hair and obviously showered since that morning, and she was as beautiful as ever.  
_It’s all right, Archer. You can do this,_ he thought. __You’re just asking out the most amazing person on planet Earth and you’re… well… you. How hard can it be?


	2. Section One Part Two

**Section One, Part Two**

**“Hey, Emma,** could I talk to you for a moment?” Archer Willows inquired, trying not to sound as scared as he was. 

“Yeah, sure,” Emma replied with a slightly confused face. 

Archer always was a bit of an odd person. He was considered weird, confusing, and annoying. All of these were true, Archer was weird, confusing, and partially annoying. It was just part of who he was.  
Archer led Emma to a private area away from people in a corner of the school. He took a deep breath and spoke.

“Well, Emma, we’ve known each other for a while now, and uh-, well… I just want to say that you’re an amazing friend and a great person, and uh…” he stuttered along now, trying to speak clearly.   
“What I’m trying to-- what I was trying to say is--”

 _Say it Archer,_ he thought. _It’s not that hard._  
But he could not say it. The words would not come out of his mouth. Then a new voice came in his brain, one that didn’t belong to him, one that spoke in a commanding, irritated growl, _Do it._  
This simple, devilish sentence seemed to ignite its way down Archer’s neurons like a spark on a fuse. Every cell in his vocal chords responded to its voice. Archer opened his mouth and found himself saying the words that would be his downfall, the ones that caused his spiral into the void of darkness:

“Emma, I like you.”

It was like a bomb had suddenly defused in Archer Willows’ brain. A terrible disruption and ceased to exist. Archer’s brain felt whole again, in pure bliss, for this moment.

Emma did a double take, like she was trying to take these words in. Then she closed her eyes and sighed sadly. She opened her eyes and gave Archer an apologetic look.

“Archer, we  _ have _ known each other for awhile now, but, well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this now, but you’re like…you’re like a brother to me. I’m truly sorry.”

The bomb had been defused too early. It was reignited, and exploded, shrapnel ripping every remaining part of Archer Willow’s sanity, and his mind splintered away. 

That night was the first of the worst of his life. He held in his pain until he got into bed and turned off the lights. Archer opened his laptop and looked for something to do. Oddly, his hands seemed to move on their own, searching up “The Next Right Thing”.  
He knew the lyrics, and as the song progressed, he sang softly with it, not realizing he was crying the whole time until the song concluded and he felt his tears leaking like a faucet onto his sheets. Archer couldn’t stop crying for what felt like years. All the pain, all the trouble he had ever had that he’d bottled up for so long had burst with the arrival of the newest failure. People always told Archer, “your fears can’t hurt you if you face them”, but Archer Willows biggest fear? Rejection.

Archer didn’t sleep, he couldn’t. He rarely slept at all over the next few months. His depression got worse, and he got angrier with life as time went on. His friends didn’t even know about what had happened. It was too painful to recount it anymore than he already had. For the rest of the school year, Archer was more miserable than he had ever been. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Section One Part Three

**Section One, Part Three**

**5 months later,** Archer Willows still never had a happy thought again. He always covered up his constant depression, as one always does, but it got harder as time went on. Only one person understood his pain, and that person was his friend Jarenne. Jarenne had been rejected too, but Jarenne had experienced even more pain than Archer had. Archer had felt closer to her over the months until May, when Archer had gotten horrible news. Jarenne had been planning to go to an Imagine Dragons concert for a year. She’d finally gone, Archer couldn’t go with her though. During the concert on May 2nd, a terrorist had caused an explosion that killed fifteen people and wounded thirty-six more. When he got the news he looked at the wounded/casualties list desperately.

Jarenne Foster was on the reported casualties list.

The grief of her death distracted Archer from his own turmoil, just for a little while. Then he was reminded of it all, and it was this that pushed Archer Willows - to the greatest stage of depression.

The school had sent a letter out for ‘condolences’ to the family and their friends. Archer was livid with them for that. A living, valued girl with lots of friends, good grades, and many years of her life had died tragically, and all the school does is say, “sorry”? Archer knew Jarenne well, she never deserved what she got. When people found out she was his friend, they usually said, “sorry”, “That’s horrible”, or “you have my deepest condolences.” He didn’t say anything, but those phrases annoyed him as well as made him feel worse. One time he was going through New York and met a teenager about 17 years old, who wore an orange shirt that was ripped, and he had vivid sea green eyes and jet black hair. They had talked for a while, and when the topic came to Jarenne, Archer waited for the kid to say ‘sorry’ like he so despised. Instead, he asked, “How did she die?”

Archer was taken aback. “A bombing at a concert.”

The kid simply nodded. He didn’t say sorry or anything. That made Archer feel better. ‘Sorry’ never felt genuine. This kid looked like he had known grief, possibly even more than he did. 

“What’s your name?” The kid asked.

“Archer.”

“Archer. That’s a cool name. I’m Percy.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tonight, Archer remembered all of these things. All of them happened this school year. And tomorrow was the last day of school. The last day of the worst year of Archer Willows’ life. He couldn’t wait for it to end. But he would never forget this year. It would always be part of him. 

Archer was determined not to let it.

This year was like the plague, it would  _ never _ go away. That would never stop Archer Willows’ determination to forget it. 

He checked his clock. 7:30 AM. Time to get breakfast and get ready.

Breakfast. Shower. Get dressed. Pack up. Read a little. Check Discord. Walk to school. That was Archer Willows’ morning routine. He followed the routine like a checklist just like every other day. 

The day went about as a normal last day of school. Teachers held ‘parties’ which consisted of cookies and free reading time. Archer loved to read, but instead he sulked and tried not to cry as he looked at the empty desk next to him that used to belong to Jarenne.

At the end of the day, he had a game plan. He was going to talk to Emma and ask her to hang out sometime.  _ Baby steps would work, _ he hoped.

At the end of 6th period, he went up to Emma Layror and asked if he could talk with her after school, and to meet him by the benches. She nodded and told him she would. 

_ Gods, she’s beautiful,  _ thought Archer as he walked away. 

Archer had waited outside for 15 minutes. He began to think she would come. Then his heart began to thump in his head as indeed, she walked outside, and went over to him. 

“So, Archer, what did you want to talk about? She said in an uplifted manner. Archer was not the only one happy that the school year was over. 

“I was just wondering if- you know- you’d want to come over to my house sometime?”

“To do what?” She inquired.

“Just hang out, maybe play some music, I don’t know really-”

He was cut short by a sudden tearing noise to his right. When he looked over, he shut his eyes tightly, but it was still there when he reopened them.

A bright, white tear of light had suddenly appeared in the middle of the lawn.

_ Archer. Archer, come to us,  _ came mysterious voices from inside his mind. He looked at Emma, bewildered, but she gave him a look that said,  _ I hear them too. _ Then he recognized the voices, and tried to stay calm.

_ Archer, come,  _ called a remnant of his grandfather.  _ Archer, you can save us all,  _ called Leila’s friend Annette. She had died in a car crash two years ago, and Leila was never the same for a year after. Then, most painful of all,  _ Archer, we believe in you.  _

It was the voice of Jarenne. 

_ Arise, Archer,  _ said his grandfather.  _ Save reality,  _ called a man who Archer did not recognize his voice.  _ Archer. We will be with you. Always.  _ Jarenne intoned. He wiped a tear from his voice.  _ Balance the powers of the realm,  _ a voice called.  _ As I once did. _ Archer did recognize his voice either. 

Emma looked at him, her eyes watering. Archer could tell she heard similar voices. 

“They’re calling us, Emma.”

She swallowed. “Yeah. I know.”

“Should we go?”

She paused. “For them. I’ll go. You don’t have to.”

“Hey,” he injected at her. “We do this together, or not at all.”

She smiled, and took his hand. He raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t let go. She rolled her eyes, and gave him a questioning look.  _ You ready? _ She seemed to say.

Archer hesitated.  _ Archer, it’s all right. You can save  _ everyone _ ,  _ called Jarenne. He nodded.

They stepped closer, and the light enveloped them, and together, they left this reality.


	4. Section Two Part One

**Section Two, Part One**

**A sudden burst** of energy thrust Archer and Emma through the light. It felt as if an invisible claw had grabbed them and pulled them forward. The light started to dim, and Archer found himself through a tunnel of purple and white energy, spinning around them as they were propelled forward. A shudder of electricity seemed to course through his body, and a shuddering tingle followed it. Then the voices returned, but this time they were fearful… they cried out as pain flared throughout Archer’s body. Then cold shivers went throughout Archer’s body. He looked over painfully and saw Emma in a similar situation, arching her back and groaning. Archer’s heart ached to help her, but he could do nothing. His eyes fixed to the very center of the wormhole. A white tear in reality began to form in the sort-of horizon. As it got closer and brighter, Archer knew that he had to get there, or the tremors racing through his limbs would kill him. He reached out his hand towards the light, and his hand connected with the light. 

An invisible force made Archer pitch headfirst through the light. A second later, his head connected with cold, hard stone. He felt his nose breaking, and he tried to get up. He was lying on a large gray rock, and from the look of it, up on a mountain. Archer felt almost normal again, except for a weird feeling that felt like a residual from the electric shocks that went through his body. Only it didn’t feel painful now, it felt almost… strengthening, almost like power, coursing through his veins. He groaned through the pain of impact with the stone. He rolled over so he was face up. Emma had gotten up, and had walked over to him. She offered her hand to help Archer up. As he took it, he noticed that she had sustained no physical injury. It looked as if she had not fallen on the ground at all, but had merely landed on her feet. Her hand was smooth and warm, and contact with it sent another tingle down his spine, this time, one that warmed his whole body like a pilot light igniting an entire fireplace with a single touch. Trying to ignore the feeling, he allowed Emma to pull him up. After letting go of her hand, he dusted himself off, and observed his surroundings. 

They were on a mountain, for sure, overlooking a body of water next to a range of cliffs and mountains. It was hard to tell anything else due to the sheets of rock on the side of the mountain. A narrow path led down the mountain towards the water, and from the look of it, there was nowhere else to go. Then Archer remembered the portal-like rip. He turned swiftly behind him, but the mysterious wormhole had disappeared. Great. They were trapped. 

“Well,” Emma pointed out. “There’s only one way to go.”

“Yeah.” Archer sighed. “One way.” 

The path seemed to go on forever, and if it was not for the fact that both Archer and Emma were experienced outdoors, they may not have made it to the ledge. As they were walking, things started to seem even more out of place. The sharpness of the cliffs and the way the land was shaped didn’t look like anything in America. The air also smelled a lot cleaner, and judging by the position of the sun, it was around 11:00 in the morning, where they had come from, it was just past 4:00 in the afternoon. When they had reached a ledge, Archer looked at his phone to check the time. When he saw it, he almost choked. It read 10:09 am, June 18, 1844. 

“What?” Emma asked, looking shocked at his reaction. He showed her the image. She did a double take, and said, “Well that can’t be right.”

Emma always was known for saying obvious things at exactly the right places, and exactly at the wrong places. It always seemed really funny, usually. At this moment, it wasn’t. 

Archer checked his phone for where they were, but the app didn’t show anywhere. It just said that they were somewhere in Norway.

“That’s not good,” he worried. “That’s not good at all.”

Again, Emma replied with, “What’s not good?”

“It says we’re in Norway - but it doesn’t say where. Something about this is… familiar…” Archer trailed off, wondering what was so relatable about this. He’d never experienced anything like this before. He walked on, and looked beyond a patch of the cliff wall that was missing, giving a clear view of the terrain. Archer sucked in his breath.

“Emma?” he called. “You  _ really  _ need to see this.”

She went over to him and looked through the hole as well. She let out a ginormous gasp. 

“It’s… beautiful…”

It was indeed beautiful. Cliff faces, mountains and waterfalls fell into a large fjord. In the river below them, a castle with many streets, halls, and rooftops gleamed spectacularly. 

“Norway,” Archer let loose a sigh of wonder. “The Land of Fjords.”

Something about the castle unnerved Archer, though. He had never been to Norway, but this castle seemed like a place he’d known since he was a little boy. His eyes fell on a brass statue of a girl and a boy, standing tall and proud together. Then almost everything clicked in Archer’s brain.

Almost everything. 

He still could not figure out how or why they were there, or definitely how the place was real, when it showed up on no map of any sort.

“What is it?” inquired Emma. “What is that look?”

“I know that castle.”

She gave him a questioning look. “Have you ever been to Norway?”

“Never,” he said in a final sort of tone. 

“You don’t recognize it?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “How do you recognize it?”

He scowled and continued walking down. He paused for a moment before asking, “Well? Are you going to come see what this is, or not?”

She nodded and followed him down the cliff. 

The path deposited them at a riverbank next to the castle. As Archer heard voices, he hissed at Emma, “Hide!” They got behind a rock jetting out from the ground.

A woman’s voice, definitely a woman’s, but a young woman’s voice called out.

“Leave. You have no business here. Leave our people alone.”

Archer had thought she had noticed them, and he was about to get out from behind the rock and apologize, and say they had nowhere to go, but before he could do anything, a rasping voice responded from the riverbank:

“No business? Well, you could not be more wrong! I was summoned here for a reason, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me from achieving my goals, nothing can!”

There was a swoosh of wind and a sound like cracking ice after it connected with water. The rasping man laughed.

“Not even  _ your  _ power can hurt me,  _ your majesty, _ ” the mysterious man mocked. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you that ice is just frozen water? It can not hurt me. It only makes me stronger!”

There was an odd sucking noise, and a sigh of excitement from the rasping man.

“Ah, that’s better. I haven’t had a proper strengthening in  _ ages _ .

“Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. I was devouring your souls and using your power to take the kingdom!”

At these words, the electric sensation in Archer’s body seeed to jump out in protest. His hands grew hot and shocking. He looked down at his hands and gasped. 

Bolts of electricity were arcing through his fingers. 

Emma was also staring at his hands too. She had a disbelieving face that Archer imagined he was also wearing at the moment. 

“Because like I said, your majesty, your ice can’t hurt me!”

“You’re right,” called a voice from behind the rock. 

Archer had spoken out of impulse, like an instinct. Out of the same kind of feeling, he stood up, his hoodie still over his head.

The rasping man was actually a humanoid figure, but made entirely out of water rapids. The water figure turned around in shock to look at Archer. 

“Ice can’t hurt you. That’s entirely correct. It makes you stronger. That is also true,” Archer confirmed. 

He studied his hands. They were no longer arcing with electricity, yet they still had an electrified tingling, as if the energy was only dormant, ready to be called upon at a moment’s notice. 

“So I’m sure you’re positive you have them cornered good and proper. _ That _ is where you’re wrong.”

He raised a hand slowly, by instinct rather than purpose, and in the same manner he spoke:

“D‘you know one thing water is very well known for?”

The water man looked puzzled. He shook his head, no longer puzzled, but excited. “Yes?”

“It’s an excellent conductor of electricity.”

He pointed his fingers directly at the man. Suddenly, bolts of lightning were projected from his fingertips at the man, where they snaked their way through the air at the speed of light. 

As the electric energy connected with the liquidity skin of the spirit, there was a bright flash of blue light followed by a piercing scream from the thing. The lightning trapped itself in the body of the man, consistently and constantly electrocuting him. Eventually the water melted off and the remains of the spirit were washed away by the river. 

Then Archer studied the women standing at the riverbank. The one closest to him was definitely the one who has been speaking. She was tall and skinny, with long, straight hair that was so platinum blond it appeared white, which fell to her waist in the back and tumbled over her left shoulder in the front. She had gentle, kind blue eyes and smooth features, but she was not dressed for the occasion. She was wearing a long, runic dress that must have been very hot in the summer weather. Archer could not help but notice that she looked very beautiful and kind. He attempted to push this from his mind. There was something very familiar about her that made Archer positive she was a good person, but he would not make any conclusions, and she really didn’t seem like the kind of person Archer would be interested in. Besides, he was still infatuated with Emma. The other woman was slightly younger-looking, with long reddish brown hair with a braided circle around her head. She had the same exact blue eyes and facial features, and they both seemed protected of each other. It was these, plus the fact that Archer recognizes these women, that led him to deduce that they were sisters. Archer then realized something.

“Well, where are my manners?” He cried. “I should introduce myself.”

He threw back his hood from his jacket, which he had been wearing because he had forgotten that it was now hot and no longer chilly like it was in Maryland. The women’s faces changed from being confused to surprised almost instantaneously. They were probably expecting a tall, handsome man with large muscles and a beard to be the one who had destroyed the watery man. Whatever they thought, they were certainly not expecting a short, scrawny 14 year old boy with no visible muscle who had just started getting acne for the first time. He signaled for Emma to come out, for she had stayed behind the rock at the intrusion of the watery spirit. 

“I’m Archer Willows. This is my friend,” he cut off so that she could introduce herself. 

“Emma Layror.” She put out her hand, and Archer followed her lead. 

The first woman took Archer’s hand, while her sister took Emma’s. As they switched to shake the other’s, the blond woman smiled and opened her mouth to speak.

“I am Elsa. This is my sister, Anna, the Queen of Arendelle.”


	5. Section Two Part Two

**Section Two, Part Two**

**Archer probably** didn’t look very surprised, as this was what he had been thinking the entire time. The castle has looked like Arendelle. The women looked just like Elsa and Anna from the movies, if they were real people and not animated. The talk about ice magic and the clothing the women wore, and most of all, the fact that they were in a fjord in Norway in the 1840s. This was what he’d suspected since he looked at the map. He bowed to the women, as not doing so would probably be disrespectful to the Queen and ex-Queen. 

“Your Majesty,” he intoned. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” He looked at them, dead seriously. 

“But we need to talk. There’s something going on that only  _ you _ might be able to help us with.”

Elsa looked at him and nodded. She seemed to understand what was going on. 

“Whatever it is, we must discuss it. But not here. There is a garden in the Royal Castle that we can speak in. Come, Archer. Come, Emma. Follow Anna and I. We will show you the way.”

They hiked up the beach, through the kingdom and through the gates to the castle. 

The garden they had mentioned was large and beautiful, with a long central table that was made of Norway spruce wood. The garden held mainly juniper and maple trees that gave off an odd, mysteriously unnatural scent. Elsa and Anna led them to the table. Archer sat down with the rest of them. Elsa was the first to talk. 

“Well, first I must thank you for getting rid of the vatnavaettir.”

Emma suddenly looked confused. “The  _ what _ ?”

Elsa opened her mouth to speak, but it was Archer who answered, “They’re water spirits from Norse mythology.”

Elsa looked impressed at his knowledge. 

“They’re real, then?” Archer inquired. “I thought they were just a myth… well, so was magic, and I’m sitting right across from the living embodiment of it.”

Anna cut across him. “How d’you know about the vatnavaettir?”

Archer tried to stay inquisitive. “I’ve read a lot about them. But I thought they were horses? All the old stories describe them as watery steeds that live underwater, but when a human comes near them, they surface, adhere to their skin, and drown them. The only similarity I noticed was the bodies of pure water. Why are the stories inaccurate?”

Elsa shrugged. 

“Spirits May take on many different forms. I’ve only ever seen one that was a horse, but that was a-“

Without thinking, Archer interrupted, “A Nøkk.”

Again, Elsa did a double take at Archer’s intelligence. “You know about them?”

Archer nodded. “Everything is backwards. In the old Norse myths, the vatnavaettir were the horses, and the  _ nøkks _ were the humans of water, though they carried violin-like instruments that played music so sad, it would _ literally _ kill the audience with broken hearts.”

Anna looked revolted at how casually Archer addresses this. He said it like this because he’d read about them so many times. 

“Wait…” Anna questioned. “How did you know that Elsa met a Nøkk?”

Ah… they didn’t know… or did they? He studied their faces closely.

“You really don’t know?”

They looked confused. “Know what?” Elsa inquired.

_ Oh, boy,  _ Archer thought. 

“Well I guess you wouldn’t know, these won’t even exist until 2013, but still…”

“What doesn’t exist? And… wait, what do you mean  _ 2013!  _ None of us are even alive then! How could _ you _ know anything that happens then?”

Emma seemed to have found the ability to speak at last. 

“That’s why we need to talk. Archer and I… we’re not from this time period. We were both born in 2005.”

Elsa and Anna gasped in unison.

“You-w- _ what? _ ”

She looked at Archer to see if he would deny this impossible statement. He nodded.

“It’s true. We live in the year 2020. We had just gotten off of school for the summer, and well, I still don’t fully understand what happened.”

“Me neither,” Emma said decisively. “I don’t understand it either, but we were just talking, not really about anything in particular, when a… a bright white rip in space opened up, and I… heard… I heard voices… voices of…”

She could not say anymore she had broken off. Archer finished the sentence for her.

“Voices of the dead. People we’d… we’d k-known that have died, they… they called to us. My grandfather… Leila’s friend Annette… J-J-Jarenne…”

His voice broke. He could not speak anymore, her memory was still too painful to think about. Elsa seemed to understand. Her expression softened and she tried to change the subject. 

“Then what happened? How did you get here?”

Emma was the first to respond. “We just… stepped toward the light. It sort of… sucked us in a wormhole of some sort, and I couldn’t move, and pain raced through my body, it felt like I was on fire or something.

“Then it all stopped and we were deposited up the mountain over there,” and she pointed where they had come from, “in the year 1844.”

They seemed to take this story very easily.  _ To their credit,  _ Archer thought,  _ They did grow up with magic. Maybe this kind of thing isn’t as much of a shock as to a regular person.  _

Anna cleared her throat. “So, you came here, and there was the vatnavaettir. How did you destroy it? I didn’t see properly, but it looked like…”

“Magic,” intoned Archer. “I don’t know how, but some sort of magic seemed to course through me, telling me what to do, and… well, the vatnavaettir is gone now… but I don’t understand what happened really… I thought, once I got here, that Elsa was the only one in the world with magic powers…”

“And how do you know that? How do you know us if we don’t even live in your time?” 

“Well, this might come as a bit of a shock, but… well, in the modern world, everyone knows who you are. They just think you’re not real. You’re fiction to the modern world.”

A look of shock at this news shot across Elsa’s face. 

“Why would they know who we are? How do they know? And why would they think we’re fake?”

It was Emma who broke the news. 

“Because you two are the main characters in two animated movies… you do know what movies are, right?” She asked because they did not seem to understand. They shook their heads in unison.

“Well, a movie is like a really long video, with a story and characters and music and sound, it’s kind of hard to explain, but animated movies are just movies that consist only of drawn frames over the whole movie, so they take a really long time to make. Bet anyway, there are two movies about you, assuming they are accurate somehow, that’s why everyone knows who you are.”

He described the plot of the two movies, asking if this was true. They confirmed that both movies were extremely accurate. 

Archer could not stop himself from asking, “So if the movies are factually correct, does that mean that you guys will randomly burst into song?”

After saying this, Archer expected them to reprimand him, because he realized he had been a little rude, but they did not. On the contrary, Elsa actually laughed. 

“You know, I don’t really know how to explain that. Yes,” she said, noticing the astonished look Archer gave her, “we actually do. We don’t really know why, but some sort of instinct inside us makes us sing at important parts of our life.”

They did not show signs of joking, so Archer assumed they were a hundred percent serious. Hopefully, this odd instinct to sing never touched Archer, as he knew his singing voice was in competition with that of a dying goat with lung cancer, and he would try to spare his friends from that excruciating earrape, which was hardly noble, it is just simple manners not to torture people. 

“So anyways,” Elsa broke the silence, “you said there was something you needed to talk to us about. What is it?”

Archer took a breath.

“Yes, and this has to do with the magic, because I’ve never been able to do this before, never felt like anything strange was going on… and now…”

He studied his hands as if waiting for residual magic to show itself. While nothing strange happened to his hands, he could still feel the slight power and electricity in the muscles and bones through his body, with the focus point being the hands.

“The thing we need to discuss… well,  _ something _ made us come here, and I don’t think it was to destroy one spirit. There’s a reason we were called here, a reason I can do magic now… I thought, you know, since you two have witnessed magic for your whole life you might be able to help us.”

Elsa studies him for a minute, as if trying to figure out how best to tell him he had a potentially deadly disease. 

“I’m sorry, but I don’t really know how to help with this. I think there is definitely a reason magic brought you here, but as to why, I could never guess accurately…

“My best guess is that something important is about to happen, something … threatening, that we could only succeed with your help. It’s strange… for a while now my powers have been telling me almost nothing, and it used to  _ never  _ stop talking to me, it got a little unbearable. Now, it just feels empty, but it seems as if magic isn’t ignoring me for a reason. Something is forcing magic apart from us. Today, though, about thirty minutes before you showed up, I felt a single… force of some sort, a feeling as if something was giving a single word through a prison, but this time, it’s like a breath, as if magic had been imprisoned and reached out one last time, giving as much power into its breath as possible. That may be magic choosing you two as it’s rescuers.”

Emma swallowed. Archer understood what she was feeling, and he felt the same way. The fact that _ magic _ \- out of billions of people - chose  _ them _ , two middle schoolers, one of which was the least popular and most hated kid in the school to  _ rescue  _ it… it was too much to fathom, and definitely too good to be true. It also put a huge weight on their shoulders. They were not responsible for the date of reality as they knew it, and would determine if their future would even happen. If the world ended, if it came to that, it would be their fault. 

There was a clear minute of silence before Archer broke it by saying, “So, what we’re guessing is that we need to… rescue magic? How exactly does one  _ rescue magic? _ And, this is a serious assumption, so if we have this wrong,  _ everything _ will go wrong, and we’ll all be responsible.”

Elsa nodded. “It’s a long shot,” she agreed, “but if we are correct, there is little time. I know we just met you, but if there’s one thing my magic’s telling me, it’s that we can trust you. I can’t ask that you throw yourself on one of our deadly quests, we couldn’t ask that of you-“

“We’ll do it,” Emma interrupted. “At least I will. I don’t know about Archer but…”

She looked at him, waiting for an answer. She sounded casual enough, but the look she gave him said,  _ I need you. Come with me. Please.  _

“Of course I’ll go,” he intoned as if it were obvious, “the only question is whether you two are okay with joining two teenagers you just met from 200 years in the future on a potentially deadly quest to gods know where to save reality?”

Elsa smirked and seemed to fight an urge to laugh. “No,” she replied, “ _ but  _ us  _ three _ are okay with joining two teenagers we just met from 200 years in the future on a potentially deadly quest to gods know where to save reality.”

Emma frowned. “Three?” She asked hesitantly.

Elsa nodded. “Three,” she repeated, “We’re not going anywhere without the King,” she said.

“My husband,” continued Anna. “and not only would he be extremely annoyed if he didn’t come, he will be really valuable to the team. Is that okay, that Kristoff accompanies us into our… ‘journey’, I would say?”

“That’s fine,” Archer agreed, “but there is one thing we have to do first.”

“And that is?” questioned Anna.

“We have to prepare. Do you guys have an armory in Arendelle?”


	6. Section Two, Part Three

**Section Two, Part Three**

**They walked throughout** the streets of Arendelle, as the warm summer breeze blew through the streets and the coolness of the river swept through the kingdom, while merchants sold their precious wares, and the artist painted in the gardens, pouring their souls into their artwork. Sculpteurs worked with porcelain and clay, their hands filled with calluses from years of sculpting masterworks, and their clay-covered hands waved at us as we went past. Marching bands played fanfares as we strolled throughout the middle city, the drummers’ sticks twirling and beating their heads, playing ratamacues and paradiddles, drags and rolls, holding their sticks in traditional grip, accenting for added flair. How Archer longed to be part of such an elite team of drummers, how he wished to play with them, but alas, he didn’t belong here, he belonged in a time long in the future, when this beautiful land would be completely forgotten, believed to be fiction, when it was thought to never exist. These peaceful, prosperous streets would be in ruins, the castle reduced to collapsing mossy bricks, the whole place overgrown and lost in the woods, the people long absent, the music that once filled the land abandoned and silent. There would be no more artwork shown if in the streets, sculptures and goods no longer for sale, the air of friendliness turned sinister and unwelcoming, and possibly the whole thing would be submerged underwater, becoming the true Atlantis, the drowned city lost forever in the river that once proudly flowed next to it before the dam collapsed from wear and tear, washing away the legacy of the kingdom forever, as nature reclaimed its territory. It ached Archers heart to even think of Arendelle like that, and he tried to not think about it anymore, but a part of it refused to leave his mind as the four of them roamed the crowded streets destined to be abandoned. He looked at Emma, and she looked back, and he could tell from her sad look that she was thinking the same things as he was. 

“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” She whispered to him as they approached the impressive castle in the middle of the kingdom. “What it’ll be like in the future? All these people, the beauty of these streets- how it’ll all be gone soon?”

He nodded, wishing he could say more. He hoped she didn’t think he was empty of emotion, but he could tell from her face that she knew how he felt. They’d been developing an ability to read each other’s thoughts based on their expression ever since they had left 2020. Some sort of instinct inside of them allowed them to understand every inch of a frown, smile, or the expression of the eyes, all which seemed like a whole language of emotions that Archer and Emma seemed fluent in without any effort whatsoever.

But only on each other’s faces. Archer still couldn’t read anyone else’s faces to save his life. 

Trying to ignore the burning sensation in his heart, and the empty, hollow feeling of his mind, he set off with the three others, as Elsa and Anna led them to the castle, where they were to find the barracks. 

“Why exactly do you need to visit the barracks?” Anna asked incredulously as they walked. 

“Well,” Emma answered before Archer could, “we’re going on a possibly deadly quest where somehow  _ magic  _ itself is imprisoned. We have no idea whether we will need to defend ourselves. Elsa already has magic to help, you have training. All Archer and I really have is Scout training in archer and rifle shooting.”

“And shotgun shooting,” Archer offered. 

“And shotgun shooting. Archer’s also got magic, but he doesn’t seem to know how to use it. Me, I don’t have any sort of magic.”

As if by answer, she coughed loudly, and the air burned. A small burst of flame flew from her mouth and heated the pavement below. Archer started at her. She looked just as shocked as he was, and so were Elsa and Anna. Anna looked extremely embarrassed to be the only one out of four without magic powers, and as far as they knew, the only three living magic users on the planet. 

“Still,” Emma continued, “there’s no way we will be able to perfectly control our power soon. We’ll  _ need  _ to defend ourselves. That’s why we need to visit the armory.”

After that they walked in silence until they reached the castle gates. The guards there let Elsa and Anna in, but they locked spears and held us back. Elsa waved them off. 

“They’re with us, Lieutenant.”

The guards let us pass and apologized. 

The barracks were located in a plaza in the East part of the castle. The plaza consisted of three buildings: a large building where Archer assumed the soldiers slept, a smaller building with targets and dummies where men kept their targets and training equipment, and one last building, with metals and hammers and weapons. Elsa and Anna led them to the third building.

“I never asked you,” Archer remembered, “do you guys gave access to powder weapons like guns?”

Elsa gave him a puzzled look. “What are guns?” She asked.

“You’ve never used guns? They were invented like… 500 years ago from  _ this year,  _ how do you not know of them?”

Elsa shrugged.

Archer explained what a firearm was and started talking about the different kinds of guns, what the abbreviations were, and how they work.

“Hmm, a simple handgun would be useful on a trip like this…” Archer thought out loud.

Before he knew it, Archer was smithing a handgun as if he did it every day, melting metals, carving wood and assembling a wooden revolver with a metal cylinder holding 10 brass shots, with a hammer that automatically reset after shooting for a faster rate of fire. Archer tried not to wonder how he’d done it, he had never before constricted a gun. He melted brass and found some powder that the army must have used for explosives, and built cases and bullets, which he stored in a small pouch attached to a leather belt. Emma helped him construct a holster for the hand cannon, but she refused to use a gun, as she said that firearms were never her style. Instead, she raided the armory, taking a sword and shield. She nodded at Archer. 

“I’m ready to go. Are you?”

He returned the nod.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he responded.

“Well then,” responded Elsa, “Let’s go pick up Kristoff, and then we’ll be on our way to… wherever we’re going.”

They found Kristoff feeding the reindeer in the stables. Archer and Emma quickly introduced themselves, and Elsa briefed him on what was happening and why they were leaving. Despite being a king, Kristoff was very humble towards Archer and Emma. He seemed like a very cool guy, and he didn’t act like a king would, he seemed to value his people as equals. This, Archer knew, was someone he could be around with. In fact, all three of them seemed like great friends, yet they’d known each other for less than two hours. Archer and Emma left them to train for a while, and they met at the archery range, talking as they shot.

“So,” Emma tried to make conversation, “you ready for this quest? Honestly?”

“Yeah,” he said. Emma stared at him. “No,” he replied, “but I don’t think I’ll ever really be ready.”

Emma shot an arrow into the 9-zone. “Me neither, I guess.”

Archer’s arrow sailed right into the bullseye, to his astonishment. 

“I was sorry to hear about Jarenne,” Emma said, but something about the way she said it didn’t annoy Archer in the slightest, though maybe it was because it was Emma speaking. “I never knew you were friends.”

She must have seen the pain in his face, and she quickly changed the subject. 

“So, um, we haven’t really… talked… that much since… you know…”

A knot twisted in Archer’s stomach. “No, we haven’t,” he agreed.

Emma gave him a sort of sad, sympathetic look, one that said,  _ I am so sorry, and I hope things will get better for you. _

“So what do you think about this?” She gestured to the land around them.

“It’s beautiful,” he replied, and with difficulty he did not add,  _ like you. _ “It’s so nice, the air’s fresh, the air is clean, it’s almost like a Caribbean postcard, but well, we don’t have time to dwell on that…” he finished.

“The whole thing will be ruins someday,” she confirmed. 

An awkward space of silence followed this. Another one of Archer’s arrows found its way into the bullseye of the target. Trying to stay blank of emotion and hard to read, he focused completely on shooting the targets, unaware of anything else. As he shot, Archer’s recent vices crossed his mind.

_ A crowded concert.  _ An arrow sailed into the center. 

_ A look of guilt on Emma’s face, opening her mouth to speak.  _

_ THWACK!  _ Another projectile found its mark.

_ Reported casualties list. _

Another target fell from the force of Archer’s arrow.

_ Jarenne’s name and face. _

Another bullseye, from 30 feet away.

_ Gone forever. _

An arrow hit dead center of the target, splitting one that was already there in half.

Archer stopped shooting. He realized he’d shot a bullseye in every target in the range within 50 feet of him. Emma was staring at him in amazement. Archer couldn’t help but feel surprised as well. There was no way a regular human could have shot  _ that  _ accurately. While Archer had always had a strength in archery, his ranged skills seemed to have increased tenfold. His parents had named him ‘Archer’ because they thought it sounded cool, and that was their only reason for naming him thus. Still, the fact that Archer was a dab hand with a bow and arrow seemed like a clever joke of some sort. He stared at the two arrows in the dead center of the target in front of him. One had been cleaved in half by the other almost perfectly.

Archer and Emma left the archery range and practiced sparring with swords. Archer, with significant experience in melee combat from video games such as Mount & Blade: Warband, and its sequel Bannerlord, as well as books like Percy Jackson, tried his best to teach Emma swordplay. 

“Try disarming maneuvers,” he told her after she had kept him back for a while before letting her guard down. “Distract your adversary until you have access to their sword’s hilt, then twist their blade with the flat of yours, then throw all of your weight into a downward thrust. This will force them to drop their weapon, giving you an opening and an advantage. This technique is extremely difficult, but if used correctly it could save your life and end a battle quickly.”

He demonstrated the move on her, and her blade fell to the ground. Then they kept sparring, occasionally Archer giving her tips on how best to defeat an opponent. He taught her how best to divert an enemy’s attention and strike in a weak area. He showed her how when an opponent lunges and thrusts, their balance is thrown off and one simple move could cause them to fall flat on their face. After about an hour, both of them were hot and sticky with sweat.

As they headed toward the barracks to meet Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff, Archer and Emma talked on the way, just like typical friends, something they hadn’t been able to do for a long time. This luxury of having someone who cared about him was something he’d taken for granted for years, and he had been deprived of that privilege earlier that year. It felt so heartwarming to have a friend talk to him as an equal, not looking down on him because of his faults, just appreciating the good parts of him, none of the bad. It was one of the things Archer liked most about Emma, she never judged people based on their worst mistakes, only their greatest triumphs.

When they reached the barracks, they found that Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff had prepared. They’d packed sleeping rolls of pure leather, canteens of water, and other materials in five leather backpacks. Additionally, they had a sack of carrots and bread, some meat rations and spare parts for the trip. They packed all of this in a very fancy sled of fine, polished norwegian spruce wood, which somehow managed to fit all five of them comfortably, along with Sven the reindeer, who insisted on coming along. 

Elsa noticed them first. She judged her sister and pointed to us. Kristoff turned as well and waved to me.

As we approached them, Elsa asked them, “Ready to head out?”

Emma nodded. “I’ll never be more ready,” Archer replied.

Elsa smiled, which was probably the first time an adult woman had smiled at him genuinely.

The five of them got in the sled, and Kristoff took the reins, and Sven the reindeer pulled the sled, taking them into the great unknown.


End file.
